A typical question you ask old friends you haven’t seen in a while. Right? Blondie and I were contemplating a beautiful Sunday when my iPhone 4G broke into Boxcar Willie’s version of Wabash Cannonball ….. “from the great Atlantic Ocean to the …. we’re riding thru to Dixie on ….”
“You guys got lunch plans?” It was Big Jim and Lady Nancy motoring from Charlotte to Nags Head. “We do now. What’s your ETA?’ “About 30 minutes.”
We had a delightful visit with our old friends and I did ask – “So, Nancy, how’s your son doing these days? Nancy’s answer was the typical one –
Let’s back up a bit. Blondie and I celebrated our 27th anniversary last week. According to The Official Anniversary Manual, #27 is “firearm” so I bought her a BB gun. We both have concealed carry permits so I coulda opted for a Beretta or a .44 Magnum but knowing her purpose a Crosman BB gun was the choice.
Blondie hates squirrels and bunny rabbits and, depending on the day and hour, one particular cat. For several years she has talked about gunning for “varmits” in our backyard.
Did I mention that Blondie had the lead in her high school play? Did I mention the play was “Annie Get Your Gun”?
She had dispensed the bunnies with some biological weapon she found at a WWI surplus store. The container said “Mustard ….” something and had a picture of Kaiser Wilhem. The violet-eating bunnies vamoosed without leaving a forwarding address nor any bunny corpses thankfully. The squirrels aka “rats with a good PR agent” proved more of a challenge ….. hence the BB gun.
The fellow in the BB gun department of “Dick’s” said there is a city ordinance about “discharging BB guns in the city limits” but, as yet, there was not a special BB Task Force charged with enforcing the law. Blondie was excited about the rifle having a scope and everything and was already thinking what her special sniper name might be. “Jackal” already had his “Day” per Frederick Forsyth. Carlos Hathcock was America’s most
…. designer Gilly suits!
famous real sniper but she didn’t think that was “intriguing” enough.
Dick’s actually had a PINK BB gun but that was not even considered. Before she could ask about “designer Gilly suits” I got her out of there.
NOTE: BB gun instructions actually do come with that “….. shoot someone’s eye out” warning.
So there we were breaking in her anniversary present on the back porch when that call came from Big Jim. As pleasantly surprised as we were to get Jim’s call, we had actually talked about them earlier that morning. The question “So how’s your son doing?” was quite rhetorical. But how often can a very proud Mamma say “He won $1,000,000 last night!”
Nancy’s son’s name is Carl as in Carl Edwards …. THE hottest driver in NASCAR this season. Carl won the All-Star Race in Charlotte Saturday night.
Jim and Nancy live in Columbia, Missouri where Jim is a J-School professor at MU. Carl and his family also live in Columbia. Whatever distorted image you may have about paunchy good-ol-boys racin’ stock cars does not apply to Carl.
Carl Edwards has a well-deserved reputation as one of THE physically fittest athletes in any sport. His workout regimen is just short of Iron Man Triathalon level in addition to a full schedule of Sprint Cup and Nationwide races. AND, he is as fine a young man as he is a fit one. Lots for a proud Mamma to be proud of.
After lunch we all came to Casa BL&B to watch Carl finish 2nd in Sunday’s Nationwide Race in Iowa. Watching a NASCAR race with a driver’s mamma is “an experience”. She’s screaming at the flat screen at a pit crew member for what she perceived as dawdling with the gas can. Our cat, Annabelle, would have none of it and hid in the bedroom. Between BB guns and hysterical NASCAR mammas, Annabelle is sleeping with one eye open.
Jim & Nancy are stopping Friday night on their way back to Charlotte for the big Memorial Day race. She will read this and deny she was screaming at the gas can man. I have witnesses.
Speaking of Missouri ….. Joplin which you all read about this week is (or was) Rocky Mount or Hickory or Statesville or any other nice, normal American city of 50,000 or so. Plenty of good folks living normal lives concerned about all the stuff we all concern ourselves with …. and never thinking that a Class 5 killer tornado would essentially “nuke” their town killing over 120 “nice normal folks”..
We joke about tornados and trailer park or tsunamis in some 3rd world hovel or assorted natural disasters that “won’t ever happen to us because we are somehow immune because we are just normal folks ….” Joplin MO is full of nice normal folks. Cancer and tornadoes don’t pay much attention to who, where or when.
On the Eastern Seaboard we have hurricane stories but there are weeks of warnings with hurricanes. “Stay or Flee” if you live on the coast but you have a choice. Folks in Tornado Alley in the Midwest know about tornados but they tell trailer park jokes too. Maybe one about a cow getting picked up and set on a church steeple. Tornados are suppose to set down in cornfields or, at worst, a farm where Dorothy and Toto live with Auntie Em ….. not rip the heart out of Joplin Missouri.
Tornadoes continue to plaque the Midwest this week. Kid is in Columbia, just a few hours from Joplin. Blondie is a weather geek obsessed with dopplers and such. She saw a band of tornado-esque storms barreling down I-70 on Wednesday headed straight for OUR DAUGHTER. Before Blondie could even scream “WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!” Kid called to say she was safe and sound in their church basement with her chums drinking communion wine-in-a-box and eating doughnuts. …… Bless her heart!
Talk about “Proud Mammas”! There another one in Garner.
As you all know SCOTTY WON AMERICAN IDOL Wednesday night. Scotty Wins and Carl Wins ….. and John Edwards (no relation) is about to be indicted for being a no-good lyin’ philandering’ weasel. Good Things DO happen to Good People ….. and Bad Things DO happen to Bad People.
Everybody in The Triangle is now playing Six Degrees of Scotty like that Kevin Bacon thingy. Everybody knows somebody who is somehow in Scotty’s orbit. Also Everybody in Garner read my last column. I was kinda expecting Scotty to look into the camera and say “BobLee, you da man.”
Maybe he did but I was so stupified by Carrie Underwood in Daisy Dukes I didn’t notice. Lord have mercy – that little gal is simply as jaw-dropping puurtee as a gal can be.
FYI: Scotty’s dad is a Wuffie and his mom is a Tar Heel …. and former RA @ Granville Towers in the early 80s. Older sister goes to AppyState.
By By BOTBob …. Butch Davis’ Human Shield aka Bob Winston is rotating off the UNC BOT effective next month. Ergo when the NCAA hammer falls, BOTBob will be nowhere to be seen, heard or held liable. His replacement as BOT Chair will be Wade Hargrove. Hopefully Wade “has a pair”. Time will tell. We’ll be watching.
